Log Horizon: Pioneers
by Shizuekana
Summary: Follow the stories and shenanigans of a certain group of Adventurers making their way through life after a certain Catastrophe.


_Adventurer, you whose weight is borne by your winged soul! The mystical world of Theldesia is home to dragons and giants, mythical beasts and demihumans. Fragrant green winds blow across this new yet ancient land that opens before you like a blank page. Fill it with your life._

* * *

Dangling from a tree like a demented, life-sized koala was hands down the best way to wake up in a MMORPG. Period.

Okay, hanging upside down and stuff might have been a bit of a stretch, but she was positive that she looked the part- almost slipping off one of the thick branches of the Silver Leaf tree, and madly scrambling back up to desperately cling onto the one of the topmost of branches. Her brain kick started from shock and gears began to turn faster than she thought they would. That was a first, given how she usually treated everyday as a Monday morning when it came to mental work.

"What the hell happened?"

She had a splitting headache as she tried thinking back to her last moments before blacking out.

 _Think, think, think..._

The vague memory of her cousin crossdressed in a highschool girl uniform surfaced. Tall, lanky, messy, and a permanent, dull poker face... stuffed into a sailor outfit that was about six sizes too small. She took about five minutes to clear that image out, though the lingering thought remained.

"Great. I wonder if I can bleach my brain."

 _That_ would be a surefire way of getting rid of the throbbing in her head. It would only maybe (just maybe) cause migraines, memory loss, brain damage, central nervous system malfunction, and/or death. But those chances were slim. Super slim. Practically nonexistent.

But the last time she thought about that... _unsettling_ image, she was sitting at her desk playing Elder Tales...

"There's something wrong with this picture."

She found the courage to revert out of koala-mode and inched herself back onto the top of the branch she hung off of, sitting with her legs dangling off the edge.

"How'd I do that for so long? I should be a pancake on the floor right now."

Out of the corner of her eye, there was a rectangular screen.

 _No way..._

"Huh?"

 _..._ _What if it's_ _ **that**_ _?_

Could it be the very thing every otaku had been dreaming of since _.hack_ became a thing?

"Shizue. Class, Samurai. Level... Hold up a sec. HP, 13 000? MP, 7 000? Wait, so I am in a game! And my gear sucks!"

Suspicions confirmed. This was some surreal RPG whatnot going on right now.

She tugged gently at the white scarf around her neck. It was made from the light, fluffy material, but she wasn't quite sure what it exactly was. She patted the thin, white sash tied around her waisted and the thought suddenly hit her:

"I'm dressed like a boy?"

She looked down to check. She was sure she was a girl. There was no way she wouldn't notice having an awkward 'thing' inbetween her legs. She remembered dressing her avatar like this on a whim after re-watching a few (totally not otome) historical anime series.

"Doesn't this count as crossdressing? Nah."

Her brain bounced back to her cousin in a sailor uniform. There was a difference, right? At least she didn't look half-bad, and she liked what she was wearing. Her cousin had complained about the clothes for the entire afternoon as they dragged him around Akihabara.

The black kimono was wrapped high up so that there was barely much of a neckline with exposure. Anything that had the possibility of showing was covered by the loose scarf. She crossed her arms contently with a nod.

"This is comfy. Samurai have the best clothing."

After pondering her clothing situation, she tuned in on the unreasonably loud, very non-Japanese complaining coming from not too far away.

"Are we at a rodeo or a K-pop concert? 'Cause either way this is _loud_."

If she could hear them from one of the tallest trees in the city, it had to be ear-splitting down there.

"I-I… This can't be right… What's going on?!"

"Somebody get over here! Hey! Admin, GM! I know you can hear me!"

"Why can't we log out?!"

"Drama queens," she chuckled to herself, waving a hand around while speaking. "It's not like the creators of this game are gonna show up tell us that its a free-for-all death trap and we can't get out till we beat the game or anything. That's too cliché. Besides, you can't beat Elder Tales. They just added the new expansion pack soooo..."

She stopped laughing.

"Oh damn, if that's how things are going we're never getting out of here. We'd never finish all the new raids anytime soon."

In all seriousness, it was kind of obvious that they landed in a game. Where else would they look like their avatars? What other defining characteristic did they all have aside from playing Elder Tales? Honesty, she found it kind of cool. Why care about the real world when you're in your _favourite game_? The last time she checked, most of humanity was on its way to pressing the 'self-destruct' button anyways.

"It's cool. Who would have thought we had the technology for this? Without a VR helmet-thing too. Hmm... Nevermind. That'd be cliché too."

If it were like that, it'd be too similar to _that_ anime.

She looked up through the little foliage there was from up high, greeted by a harsh and clear sky. It was nice. Too nice. She'd rather be back in her stuffy room rolled up in a blanket-burrito. It was a holiday too, Golden Week, so she could've spent her time sleeping in and procrastinating on the assignments that were due after the break.

It'd probably be for the best that she switched into 'Sugar Rush' mode for the next little while. Positive thoughts.

"Well! Might as well make the best of things and explore."

As soon as she said 'explore' she reminded herself of where she was. In a tree. Not just any run-of-the-mill backyard tree. The Silver Leaf tree, judging by the few silvery leaves here and there. She peered over the edge. It was a long way down.

"Oh jeez... Maybe I can jump."

She a tiny hope that the leaves would cushion her fall. If not, she would land on grass or maybe something sharp and pointy and become a Samurai kebab. Either way, she didn't like her chances.

"Hmm..."

Using _Call of Home_ to teleport to the gates of Akihabara would work. It was a good idea until she realized that there was no menu to activate the spell. She shook her hand in the air in front of her. Nothing happened.

"But that always works in anime! How else should it work? Do you have to do a handstand? Sign language? Sing nursery rhymes?"

Hopes crushed, she sighed and scooted down the branch, all the way to the trunk. There was only one way to get out now.

She took a deep breath, latched herself onto the tree with a giant bear hug, and slowly slid down, eyes squeezed shut. She figured she looked like some weird leech or something similar to that.

"I'm too young to die, I'm way too young to die. I wanted to live for maybe three more years..."

She actually wanted to finish high school, and she had a long way to go. She didn't mind not living after that, seeing as college or university was... Unthinkable. It was the 'It-That-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned' to her. After completing education, people normally had to do stuff like 'get a job' and get badgered about 'getting married'. The thought of it made her shiver.

The effects of 'It-That-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned' were something that she had witnessed firsthand. Some university courses sounded like a trip to hell and back. Could she major in something important like eating? She wasn't worried about post-secondary education. She'd grown up with Asian parents. She'd probably go to college or something for a while. Things would work themselves out like they always did.

 _Oh, but poor Tsuyu. The woes of being a single child..._

She thought of her nagging friend that was hellbent on getting good grades and being the perfect goodie-two-shoes. Tsuyu was obsessed with that kind of stuff. It wasn't as though her parents were putting that much pressure on her either, they were pretty lenient so long as she didn't fail. There was something wrong with that girl.

 _We're so unlike each other. I forget how we became friends in the first place. It's the whole opposites attract thing?_

Really though, there _was_ something wrong with her.

The math assignment that was handed out yesterday and due next week? She finished it already. That new classic text they were doing in Japanese literature? She already read it six times. Heck, she aced Home Economics, saying that she couldn't let it bring down her GPA and ruin her chances of getting into university. Home Ec. didn't even matter! The way Shizue saw it, knowing how to use a microwave and maybe a toaster should have been enough.

It didn't end there. Tsuyu nagged Shizue on and on about how she stayed up past ten-thirty, asked to copy her homework, and didn't study. At one point, she dragged Shizue around the school trying to find a club for her to join, despite her protests that she was a part of the Going Home club.

Staying up all night studying and writing essays instead of gaming sounded like the worst thing in existence. Shizue would rather be a N.E.E.T. instead. That reminded her of the homework assigned to them that was supposed to be finished before the end of Golden Week again, and her happy meter just dropped to negative three.

Shizue kept her mind on the depressing stack of textbooks until she was basically sitting on the thick roots of the tree. So much for positivity.

"Huh... I'm not dead yet. Nice."

She detatched herself and sat amongst the roots, back against the tree, breathing shakily. Not from the physical exersion (surprisingly), but the thoughts of real life and climbing down trees. It only took about ten minutes— which was still a stupid-long amount of time— but it felt like ten hours. She groaned and considered taking a nap on the soft grass at the base of the tree.

"... I think my life just got shortened by twenty years."

She stood up, picking out bits of bark that got stuck in unreasonably long , black hair, which fell to about the back of her knee, tied in a low pony tail like one of those shrine priestesses. She combed through her hair with her fingers a couple times.

"Time to make due with the whole 'exploring' stuff."

Hands in her sleeves, she marched down towards the town's main plaza. No matter how she looked at it, it was the carbon copy of Akihabara from Elder Tales, just in super high definition. It was the same forest and ruins. Same tree stump around the corner. It felt so familiar, even though she had never actually been here.

"Oh, hey!"

She saw familiar faces here and there, a few players who she formed temporary parties with and some big names she recognized from major guilds. Interacting with other players in makeshift groups took her back to her earlier gaming days. Lately, she had only been dragged along to raid after raid. In her opinion, quests were more fun and less demanding.

 _I should have played on my alternate a_ _vatars_ _more..._ _Those were fun._

She eyed a player that was clad in gold and silver armour that was at least a rare Artifact-class item.

"Ooh... That gear looks cool."

Everyone was dressed in the typical armour, cloaks, and robes one would expect from a world of swords and sorcery. Standard RPG stuff. Some of which looked really impractical for real-life use, but still looked awesome.

 _Oh, and that_ _shield_ _over there! That's fantasy-class!_

She was too busy fangirling over this and that until...

"Oof... Huh?" "Woah!"

She walked straight into somebody, more surprised at at her lackluster reaction and the fact that the impact didn't hurt. On instinct she caught the paper bag that flew in her direction and blinked a few times, wide-eyed. Looking down, the bag was filled with ingredient items.

"Oww..."

 _What just happened?_

In front of her was a boy, probably a couple years older, on the ground, holding his chin. He sprang back up immediately, brushing the dirt of his tunic shirt. He looked more apologetic than hurt.

"I'm-I'm sorry! I was in a rush!"

"Mhm..."

Shizue's eyes floated suspiciously from him to his info-bar. It read 'People of the Land'.

"Are... You alright?"

As soon as he opened his mouth, some weird switch went off inside her.

"An NPC! In 4-D! Or... Is it 5-D? Hey, Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's!"

Eyes lit with curiosity, she focused on the boy. Short, light brown hair and green eyes.

"What... What is that? NP...C?"

"You look European."

She put a hand to her chin thoughtfully with a nod.

"Euro... European?"

"Yeah. Like, a Westerner. Pretty common. Funny though, you aren't speaking pre-written lines."

She tilted her head up to look at him in the eyes with a slight frown. She must have said too much. Now things were awkward.

 _Why did I say all of that?!_

"What is going on? I don't understand you."

 _I have to get out of here..._

"Nope. Neither do I."

She handed him back his groceries quickly and walked off as fast as possible.

"Bye!"

 _I'v_ _e forgotten how to talk_ _properly_ _with living beings._

A part of her argued back that usually in games, you were given 'yes' or 'no' choices or something like that to answer with. Even in reality, she awkwardly waited around for the options to pop up in front of her when interacting with others. It was a side-effect of playing a few too many otome games aside from Elder Tales.

But.

That was an NPC. A non-player character. Was the guy like some AI or what? He didn't seem like one, and she doubted that the programmers had enough time to make thousands of unique AI.

 _What if they're all the same? Like_ _they'd all answer the same question with the same answer... Creepy..._

The thought was just strange. Interacting with something that didn't have a real person behind it. She wasn't sure which was stranger: Talking with an NPC or having a full blown, legit conversation with Siri. Maybe the latter.

 _There are more People of the Land than I remembered._

In the shops and stalls, along the streets, going in and out of buildings... Shizue didn't remember there being so many of them around. Usually there was one or two of them in shops, in the guild meeting hall, inside taverns and inns, certain NPCs that gave out quests and tasks. There were as many as required, so it was a bit strange to see so many more.

 _Is this like a Baby Boom or...?_

An NPC Boom? She didn't know what to call it. NPCs were rarely mentioned in RPG anime, so it wasn't exactly something that was touched upon at all.

 _..._ _M_ _ight as well find out what I can?_

She looped back around the plaza a few more times, eavesdropping in a few conversations to see if she could get any information. It was the same annoying repitition of 'we're trapped in the game', 'I want to go home', and 'where's the Admin?'. The only new thing she learned was how to open the menu.

 _So if I focus on my forehead..._

The menu popped up in front of her. The interface was a tad different, most likely because of the expansion. It still looked pretty standard though, without any drastic changes.

 _Items, Quests, Techniques, Settings... Oh! Log Out!_

Might as well at least try. She tapped on the icon. A little prohibited sign popped up, blinked for a bit and disappeared. Nothing happened.

 _Log Out._

She tried again.

 _Log Out._

Nothing happened.

 _Log Out, Log Out, Log Out, Log Out, Log Out!_

"Stupid button is bugged."

Nothing happened the next fifty times either. Apparently spamming the button wouldn't work. It was broken.

"Someone's gotta contact Game Support about that."

She closed the menu with a small sigh. She was kind of expecting it though. If no one else was able to get it to work, why would she be any different? Besides...

 _I_ _t wouldn't be fun if we weren't all trapped!_

"That means... Hell yeah, I can live here!"

Her slight disappointment faded in an instant as she started planning out how she was going to spend the next forever and a half inside of Elder Tales.

"Should I just stay in an inn or...Guild hall maybe? But then I'd need a guild."

She looked expectantly at the crumbling buildings that lined the roads. Before, they weren't anything more than backgrounds, but if there were real, living in one wouldn't be such a bad idea. She'd have to find one of the more stable ones.

She ditched the topic quickly as she noticed some stalls selling fruits and vegetables.

"Oh, and I'll just find a restaurant or something. I could change my Subclass to Chef if I really have to! Not that it'd change too much..."

She was all aboard the 'living in a different world for the rest of forever' train, and found it a bit strange that others seemed to think the opposite.

"Should I go lone-wolf?"

It sounded cool on the surface, it always did when you were under the influence of anime. However, she remembered that she couldn't tie shoelaces until she was ten. She wasn't exactly independent in some ways. In her defense, Velcro existed so she thought she was fine at the time. The first time she got shoes with laces? That was a wake up call.

Some company wouldn't be so bad anyways. It was worth a shot.

"Ooh, I know!"

She oppened the menu again and went to her Friends List, happy at all the lit up names as she scrolled down. She had too many choices. Not knowing who to pick, she closed her eyes and scrolled up and down randomly until her hand stopped.

 _ **Kai.**_

"No, no, no. Anyone but Kai. I'll just scroll up a bit..."

The last thing she needed right now was a problematic troublemaker. That was her job, and Kai somehow managed to do better than her at it.

 _ **Hakuryuu.**_

"Haku! Hakuryuu it is."

She was okay with Hakuryuu. He sided with her when Kai was being a jerk (then again, most everyone sided with Kai's victims), and he was just a little closet otaku that couldn't harm a fly. Never swore, respected his elders, listened to people when they were ranting, watched rom coms with her and everyone else at their usual get-togethers.

 _Now that I think about it... He's like the ultimate boy scout._

Maybe 'the-guy-you-can-chill-with-without-seeing-him-as-an-actual-guy' was a better title. Or the terms 'domesticated' or 'mild-mannered'. Haku was a lot of things. Tolerable was, luckily, one of them.

 _I wonder how he's holding up. I hope he isn't crying or anything..._

She was suddenly worried. The boy wasn't exactly the strongest when it came to emotions.

That, or he had a serious soft spot for romance dramas, because after one opening scene, he had already emotionally bonded with every character in sight, cried for fifteen minutes, and started complaining about how the second male lead should end up in the main relationship.

One memory — one day when they were watching a live-action adaption of a romance together after school — stood out in particular:

" _Why would she end up with the good-for-nothing, bad boy_ _who can't do anything_ _when she can have someone who genuinely likes and cares for her? It doesn't make sense!"_

" _Haku... Really? I mean, you're not wrong but... This isn't that bad."_

" _St-Still!"_

" _... Are you crying?"_

" _N-N-No!"_

" _Are you okay?"_

" _No! I mean yes! I'm okay!"_

" _You're crying."_

" _No I'm not!"_

" _... They only played the recap from the last episode..."_

" _I said I wasn't crying!"_

" _Right... Here's the tissue box."_

" _Thanks..."_

She smiled. Watching shows with others, all cramped on the floor or on the couch— those were some good times. She suddenly realized and missed things like modern appliances and electricity. From what she saw, they were basically back in the Stone Ages.

 _So fridges don't exist?! Is it even possible to live here?_

"Wait, there _are_ menus."

It was a weak argument.

Was a world where monsters, swords and magic existed worth the coziness and comfort of the modern day? For Shizue, like most people, it depended entirely on mood. There were days when the only thing she wanted was to stay in, do geek things and snack all day, but there were also those times she ran around like she downed a bucket of sugar in one go.

Right now, she felt like she could climb a few mountains, run a marathon, and still have left over energy to spare. The problem was that things weren't going to stay that way for too long. After about a week (probably less), she was going to want a place to shut herself in and just eat for a few days.

 _At the very least, k_ _otatsu and hot chocolate better still exist._

The more she thought about it, the more trivial it seemed.

 _Oh God, no..._

The _real_ problem was that the one-size-fits-all answer to any and all their questions wasn't available.

"Awww... I can't Google stuff anymore! We're all screwed. We're gonna die."

Maybe being trapped in an MMO wasn't so great after all.

* * *

 **A/N:** _If you're reading this,_ _congratulations! You've finished the 354th draft of Log Horizon: Pioneers, Chapter 1! In all honesty though, thank you so much to those who still read this, or have just started reading. It really does mean a lot. Considering this is the very first fanfic I've wanted to take seriously (hopefully you could tell by the amount of drafts), I hope things can only go up from here! No wait, there's school never mind. I'll go crawl back to my stacks of work and textbooks from hell. ~Shizuekana_

 _PS: If you have the time, could you tell me how I did with this new first chapter? Oh great, now I sound like one of those people who asks for rates and reviews. I'll see myself out now. You know what? Just have a nice day! Until next time!_

 _PPS: If your notification says Chapter 2 was posted, I forgot to delete the old chapter. There should only be one chapter out right now. My bad, sorry!_


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